E-newsletter 10/19/11 news jumps and exclusives for Friends of Store Front in Syracuse and beyond

Store Front news jump: You get it first, before others read it in The P-S and Syracuse.com. One more item on the announcement Tuesday that Destiny USA-Carousel Center is landing a Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill restaurant and entertainment venue: Yes, you read it before. I reported in July TK was a likely candidate for the Carousel Center expansion. I hit it again more recently. We like to keep our ear to the ground... A bit of a switch for Metro Home Style. We told you recently the hip home decor store was leaving its home at the Regional Market Commons for a spot in the Landmark Theatre building. Linda O'Boyle had to switch it up because, she says, the Landmark retail space on North Clinton Avenue won't be ready for her to sell by the crucial holiday shopping season. Instead, says O'Boyle, "Metro Home Style has found a new permanent home at 689 North Franklin St., the same building as the Franklin Lofts and Spaghetti Warehouse. The space is twice as big as our store at the Market Commons and will offer new product lines and new services such as delivery to downtown businesses and residences. The store will open the first weekend in November with a holiday open house planned for later in the month." ... Here's something new for one of your favorites off Tipp Hill, Brooklyn Pickle. An expansion, more dining room and more parking. It should be ready by St. Patrick's Day, I'm told. ...

For friends of Store Front only:

The exterior of the first Wegmans supermarket in New England. It opened this week in Northborough, Mass., a suburb of Boston.

From Retailing Today:

Wegmans evokes rural theme in first Mass. store

NEW YORK — Wegmans Food Markets has opened its first location in Massachusetts, in the town of Northborough. The 138,000-sq.-ft. store, the largest supermarket in New England, has a warm, welcoming feel.

“As you approach the store,” said Corinne Chiogna, who headed Wegmans’ design team’s effort, “there’s a rooster-themed weathervane atop a cupola in the center of a gabled roof. It’s a reminder of food’s roots in agriculture. The stonework on the face of the building, the diagonal bracing, and soft neutral colors with red accents on the roof make you think of a barn in the countryside. We chose traditional rather than trendy themes because we wanted everyone to feel comfortable in this space.”

Rural landscapes are echoed indoors, too, but with light, fun touches. As one enters the store, a hand-painted mural over the Coffee Bar is a rendering of Wegmans’ Organic Farm located on the edge of Canandaigua Lake, in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. Every half hour, the barn door in the mural opens, the sun lights up, and a crowing rooster pops out of the three-dimensional barn anchored in the mural.

Approximately one-third of the space is devoted to prepared foods, with another 15,000 sq. ft. for a liquor department and a 300-seat cafe. The giant store features 70,000 products and some 30 checkout lanes.
.My comments: As it does when it enters any new market -- New Jersey, the South, Albany (eventually, hint, hint) -- Wegmans drew huge crowds and gushing press coverage when it opened its first store in New England this week.

It's simple, really: No one does it like Wegmans. That isn't coming from me. It's coming from industry analysts and others who cover the supermarket business online and in print publications.

And those who have left Central New York or anywhere Wegmans calls home usually complain and ask ME "When is Wegmans going to come to (insert name of region)?" I had that question just this past weekend, when family and friends living in the New York City market, visiting Syracuse and making Wegmans a last stop before they drove home: "When is Wegmans coming to Westchester County?"

My take: Wegmans has done its homework and Wegmans has a plan. I don't believe for a second the Wegman family won't someday roll into wealthy suburban New York City and tonier towns in nearby Connecticut.

I sense (and have heard) grander plans for Wegmans' open territory between Fayetteville and Northborough. And one more time: There's no "deal" between the Golub family, the family behind Price Chopper, which dominates the Albany market, and Rochester-based Wegmans to stay out of each other's home turf. And they already compete with each other (here in Central New York, for one).

And Wegmans has plenty of turf to fill in in western Massachusetts and more of the Boston market. Metropolitan New York City? Never, ever rule it out. That's my take.